1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to medical systems and methods, and, in particular, relates to systems and associated methods for diagnosing and/or treating neurovascular conditions with the use of an intravascular guidewires or catheters having pressure, volume and/or flow sensing capabilities.
2. Description of Related Art
Typically, when a patient exhibits ischemic stroke conditions, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), CT-perfusions, or both are generally used to determine whether the patient is a good candidate for a thrombectomy. However, such diagnostic procedures often take a substantial amount of time and can be quite expensive. When a patient has an aneurysm, the aneurysm may be filled with coils or may be bypassed via a stent. To determine whether an aneurysm is sufficiently coiled, the packing density of the coil may be measured. However, due to various conditions including aneurysm size, skill of the clinician, etc., measurement of the packing density may be inaccurate. To determine whether an aneurysm is sufficiently bypassed by a stent or filled via coiling, an angiogram is commonly used. However, an angiogram measures neither pressure, pressure drop, flow direction nor flow rate, and thus may not be the best indicator of effectiveness of the procedure.